LudgerTag Permethylation of Glycans

Analysis of glycans by MALDI-MS provides mass composition data and is faster than UHPLC techniques (on average one sample can take as little as 1 minute for data acquisition), but sialylated glycans are usually more difficult to analyse because the sialic acid moieties are labile. Permethylation is a popular technique for the derivatisation of carbohydrates for MALDI-MS detection, as it enhances ionization efficiency, stabilizes the sialic acids and aids linkage analysis studies. However, conventional techniques used for permethylation are slow, labour intensive and therefore not suited to high throughput sample analysis.

We have developed a simple to use LudgerTag kit for permethylating glycans, LT-PERMET-96. The kit can be used to process 1-96 samples using either a manual method or an automated method that has been adapted to a liquid handling robot. It is suitable for N- or O-glycans and once permethylated, they can be analysed by MALDI-TOF-MS or LC-MS.

We have validated this technology and demonstrated that glycoprofiling data is reliable and comparable to the gold standard HILIC UHPLC method. This technology has been used for a range of high throughput studies at Ludger (and using the automated permethylation sample preparation time is under 5.5 hours for 96 samples).